Yep same here a county over. People swear there are a mating pair of black panters and every now and again someone will report seeing one or both and or with kittens.
The question on everyone else's mind is , well if they've been breeding all these years where did the younger adult cats go? No one has seen more than just that pair of breeding cats.
This story has been going on longer than I have lived in East Tennessee and I have been here over 25 years. One would expect after all this time East Tennessee would have a healthy huntable population of panthers.